


In My Shoes

by orphan_account



Series: VLD RarePair Week 2019 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Attempt at Humor, Bodyswap, Canon Related, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Height Differences, Humor, Light Angst, Rating for Language and Very Mild Violence Mention, Understanding, VLD RarePair Week 2019, mildly depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20747993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lotor joining the ‘team’ was the last thing anyone expected — or, frankly, wanted — so interrogation seemed the best option. But, surely they can’t just trust his word, can they? Deciding that no, they can’t, shows itself to be both the best and worst decision they could have made at that moment.Who knew that Pidge could be even more annoying once she’d grown a few feet — or that Lotor could be so cute once he’d shrunk a few.





	In My Shoes

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my first time writing, but it is my first time uploading. This is... something that exists now, I hope you found mini Lotor as amusing as I did.  
For: VLD RarePair Week 2019 - Day 1: Bodyswap

Perhaps a rubber ball of some sort could make this fun. Sat alone, in a cell, awaiting interrogation — I’m sorry, but that’s not fun. Something to bounce off of the translucent panelling — windows? — in front of him, because this is so  _ boring _ .

"Okay, so, I  _ think _ I have something that will work," the little angry one said, frustration peeping through each syllable like it was on a stealth mission. "This should mean we can get info out of him like we tried with Sendak; except, ya know, he's conscious."

What in the name of quiznak did these  _ children  _ think they were going to do?

"Lotor—" he snapped his head up to the summoner, "—I do hope you won't give us too much trouble in this," Allura snapped.

"Princess, I have already told you countless times," he stood to his full height, "I am on your side, and you know as well as I that I have no reason to lie."

The princess simply gave a small, self-satisfied smile. "Oh, you needn't worry about lying. In fact, you need not worry about speaking at all."

This brought Lotor to pause. It wasn't as if he had cause to worry about a truth serum or anything of the like — he had full intentions of joining the coalition, his goal  _ was _ to bring down his father. But all this talk of consciousness and speaking was beginning to alarm him. The little angry one now appeared satisfied with the band she held in her hands — a similar one, if a little smaller, perched atop her head like a crown — and started approaching the holding cell. Her petite digits fiddled with wires and latches on the band —  _ headband _ , Lotor's brain corrected — until something clicked, and a light on the side glowed green in congruence with an identical light on her own headband where the wires connected.

"Alright," the little one began, "I'm gonna come in there, so you sit way back over there— and no funny business!" She pointed a finger in emphasis of her point. Then again, Lotor didn't particularly see it as necessary when he knew he bore no ill will toward them, least of all the smallest (youngest?) one of the group; though if her bite was as strong as her bark then he preferred to keep his dignity.

She opened the sliding lock to the cell, and hurriedly closed it behind her, turning her back to him for only a second before moving to his side where he had sat down once more. She did not sit down with him.

"Now hold still, Malfoy," she grumbled, to the strange amusement of one of the other paladins — the loud one — who snorted into his fist at the quip, Lotor simply frowned. "Lemme put this on, and— sit still!" she snapped at Lotor, who was becoming less and less keen on having this strange device upon his head. The snap stopped him, and she placed it on, clipping a latch on the side that seemed to tighten it securely — and catch a chunk of hair at the same time, ow — before hovering her finger over a button on the side of her own band. "We good to go? You got a feed, Coran?" she asked the others outside the cell.

"I've got a vision feed on both of you, vitals are stable," Mr Moustache chirped, "the rest is up to you, Pidge." Whatever that meant. Lotor was progressively becoming more and more paranoid the longer this went on without explanation, but there's no need for him to show his paranoia — he may want to be allies, but that doesn't mean showing weakness already.

"Okay then, three—" wait, what "—two—" excuse me what's with the countdown all of a sudden "—one." And Pidge pushed the button.

*

Lights,  _ ugh so bright _ .

"That's it," a voice came — the loud one? — and the blurry vision started to clear. "Damn, Pidgey, you had me going there for a sec'!"

_ What? _

Lotor squinted at the brightness, grimacing as he regained fuzzy, but very real, feeling in his body once more.

_ Wait a minute _ . Something felt very, very different.

"What in the name of—" That was not his voice. But that  _ was  _ his voice.  _ But he didn't say anything.  _ He sat up abruptly — a mistake his head thoroughly berated him for — only to come face to face with—

"Holy  _ shit _ —"

"My goodness—"

Lotor scrambled back, only to stumble into the loud one's legs, but that didn't matter to him at that moment. Sat across from him, dishevelled and looking rather uncharacteristic, was  _ himself _ .

"Oh, that is fucking weird." His voice, not his words.

"You're telling me," he replied — his words, but not his voice.  _ Hers _ . He felt a tap to the shoulder and turned towards it, the loud one wore a sympathetic smile and held out a hand, presumably for him to take, so he did.  _ And his hand was not his own, his jacket was not his own, the forward motion pushing fluffy brown hairs into his eyes masked with glasses that were not his own _ .

"No one gonna help me up?" Lot—  _ Pidge  _ called. Allura went and did just that, an unsettled pinch to her brows not easing in the slightest as she did so. "Jesus, you're  _ tall _ ." She said, the awe and curiosity sounding so out of place in his voice.

"I'd prefer to think you as rather  _ small _ ," Lotor countered, the formal fluid of his words sounding peculiar again in her childish voice.

"Is there something the two of you aren't telling us?" Allura asked.  _ Well, it would need some explaining now, wouldn't it _ .

*

It took a lot of explaining. And a lot of questions. Needless to say, Lotor was offended.  _ A lot _ . Turns out, they didn't trust his word — understandable — so they decided to have Pidge wire up their mind-melding devices so that she could connect their minds (in a supposedly one-way channel) and read  _ his _ . Rude. And of course, it malfunctioned. With no idea how or why, and with two newly-fried headsets, they were short on ideas — especially since Pidge decided to let everyone know that she wasn't entirely sure what it was she actually did to them to achieve the mind connection. So now, here they were, all sat in the common room together; a newly bashful (though mildly smug) Pidge, a confused team, and a grumpy little Lotor.

"Well, there's not much we can do about this now," Allura said, standing to face the group — and Lotor — from the front of the common room. "And we have an important meeting with the Olkari  _ and _ the Blade in less than 6 vargas, so we must figure something out."

"We could always bring him with us," Pidge suggested. Everyone had a startled — almost begrudged — look flash across their face before considering the proposition. "You guys didn't forget I could see in his head, right?" Wait.  _ Excuse me _ .

"So it worked?" Coran questioned, his tone near elated.

"Yup." Pidge's popped 'p' only furthered the obnoxiously smug look on her —  _ Lotor's  _ — face. It pulled an involuntary grimace out of Lotor himself, who had lost much stake in this conversation, and instead chose to wallow. "And — if it all went according to the schematics—"

"You had no schematics Pidge," Lance interjected.

"— _ if _ it did, then Lotor," she continued, "am I right in saying you know nothing?" she asked, the small knowing smile peaking out with her question meant she already knew the answer.

"If you are referring to my ability to see what is or was ever in your own mind, you are correct, it is non-existent." And that was just depressing. On top of everything (everything being that he was now at least four feet shorter, no longer strong _by any means_, and had lost his dignity both as Galra and as royalty) he had learnt nothing new.

"My  _ point  _ is," Pidge piped back up, "I can now vouch for him. He's safe to bring along."

_ Vouch for me? Surely not. If she can see everything, then she knows— unless she's bluffing. But if she knows, she knows about the girls, she knows about our work, she knows about my mother, the Alteans, she knows. _

Lotor eyed her, scrutinising. Surely she didn't know. He may indeed be on their side, but that doesn't negate the bastardly things he had done, nor did it stop the current behind-the-scenes sketchiness of his work with his generals.

She eyed him back, while the others discussed in the background noise. A near-conversation held between them, fleeting, but there.  _ She does know _ . Her eyes said as much — his eyes, but it was  _ her _ .

"Alright." Allura clapped her hands together and dropped them to her lap, the background noise cleared. "We trust Pidge's judgement, we are a team after all. We will take Lotor with us, but he — and Pidge — will stay out of the way of the meeting." Pidge's face immediately softened to something so downtrodden that it looked downright bizarre on Lotor's face. "I'm sorry Pidge, but we can't risk word getting around that we're in a...  _ vulnerable  _ situation. I will alert the Olkari of Lotor's presence, and that it is peaceful."

"And the Blade?" The quiet one. The one who had not stopped eyeing Lotor since he'd arrived on this ship. Fiery,  _ I'm not keen _ .

"I will notify the Blade too," Allura said, more like forced out, it seemed like every word gave her pause to doubt as she said it. No doubt the Blade wouldn't exactly be up in arms about this.

*

"Welcome paladins." Ryner greeted them, and Pidge felt like she was home away from home.

The world around her was home. At heart, she knew she had a place here — perhaps not to belong here, but at the very least, she felt welcomed here. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to enjoy it as much as she would usually, not from the back of the group, hip-to-shoulder with Lotor. He had refused to relinquish his hold on the scowl that took over his face, funnily enough, an expression so wholly  _ Pidge _ . They would basically be stuck together for the whole meeting while the team, the Blade, and the Olkari had a pleasant little chitchat.

"What's with the grumpy face mister 2-inches-tall?" she asked, desperately trying to keep the smirk under wraps — the name-calling was bad enough — though she feared it leaked into her voice just a tad too much.

"What do you think?" he quipped back. Pidge left it at that, if he wanted to talk, then he would.

Walking side by side allowed for enough of an indication to Lotor that Pidge longed to be walking among the others. And, somehow, Lotor found himself pained at this. It occurred to him that this young girl had seen who he was — had seen what he had done and what he intended to do — and while this meant that she  _ knew _ he really was after the same goal as Voltron, she also knew he was pursuing said goal with, previously, rather... unsavoury means. Pidge knew, yet she said nothing of it. But she still would rather be elsewhere — as if she were on his side enough to protect his secrets, but begrudgingly, and with an unspoken complaint. Like she was putting up with him, because she was on his side, and because she felt she had to. Like everyone had seemed to be. Putting up with him all his life.

A few hundred yards up the Blade came into view, accompanying them was a group that appeared unfamiliar to Pidge — a group of  _ Galra _ unfamiliar to Pidge. Her first impulse was to catch up to the team and ask about them, and while doing so would now only take a few leisurely strides, it would also likely startle anyone not in the know.

"I take it from your newfound tension that I'm not alone in the startling confusion brought about by—" Lotor gestured towards the nearing group, "— this."

"You could save a lot of breath by just saying 'who the fuck is that', you know," Pidge deadpanned, which earned her a disgruntled huff and a small pout from Lotor that didn't look too out of place on his not-his-own face.

Up ahead, the conversation between Voltron, the Olkari and the Blade finally became audible — to Pidge's great relief, as this meant she overheard the Blade explaining the presence of their  _ allies _ from within the Empire's forces. But listen was all they  _ could _ do, so Lotor turned to Pidge for the first time in hours.

"Why did you defend me?" No need to beat around the bush, at the level Lotor spoke at he'd be inaudible to the rest of the surrounding company anyway.

"Defend you?"

"Don't play coy," Lotor quipped back immediately, "it doesn't suit my face." Which raised an eyebrow from Pidge,  _ oh really?  _ "You saw everything. You  _ know _ . So why did you defend me?"

At this, Pidge took pause — a look almost akin to bashful taking over the Galran visage. "Am I not allowed to defend someone who's on our side?"

"I'm not Voltron. Nor am I a Paladin. I know your ethics, don't test me."

_ Resignation.  _ "What you've done—" Pidge cut herself off, seeming to start again, "Your methods are... unethical, yes. And by no means acceptable to Voltron — certainly not to Allura." She spoke softly, choosing her words at a dawdling pace.

"But?"

"But... I can't say you have disagreeable intentions." That was probably the last thing Lotor expected to hear from the young Paladin. Too bad it was the last thing he'd hear from her at that moment.

There was a commotion — a scuffle, however subtle at first — that arose from the meeting to the side of them. And then, pandemonium.

A blaster had been fired, and Lotor was suddenly struck with the thought of how bizarre it felt to watch his own body fall to the ground. In a pool of blood. Lotor was at the ready to fight before he realised he was crouched over his own prone body, holding himself as if he were a bitch protecting her pups — prepared to kill. But the Blade had already squashed the threat by the time his eyes had come to focus on the group before him. So they weren't  _ allies _ after all.

And the last thought that crossed Lotor's mind before he blacked out —  _ once allied to the Empire, always allied to the Empire. _

*

He looked so sad. Alone.  _ Hurt _ .

Pidge had been out of the healing pod quickly, only a light fog clouding her brain for mere seconds before she was focused enough to question why she wasn't tall anymore. And, well, focused enough to tell the team that she was  _ herself _ , and not Lotor.

And now, sitting outside Lotor's pod, where she could see the scanner reading his status as making good progress, Pidge could only think about how he looked so  _ sad _ .

A quick discussion with Coran made it clear to Pidge that the  _ swap _ made by the mind-meld devices was actually a temporary  _ link _ , a case of deep connection triggered by unconsciousness, maintained by consciousness, and broken once more by the former. It occurred to her that she should probably just get back to work and move on, it was over, no harm done. But she couldn't. The way Lotor had spoken to her — what she had  _ seen _ in him. When Pidge was given that split-second chance to either defend Lotor to the team or leave him to be condemned, why did she jump at it?

_ A broken home _ . She kept seeing that phrase in her mind when she thought back to his memories. He was from a broken home. Unloving parents; a monumental responsibility on his shoulders he was expected to be ready for but never actually take on; a stigma carried with him based upon his heritage. He'd done some... questionable things, sure, but he knew that in order to achieve his goals —  _ Voltron's  _ goals before they even resurfaced — he had to be the villain. Sacrifice what others couldn't for the sake of the bigger picture. In a way, he laid the groundwork for them before they showed up, making those sacrifices so that Voltron didn't have to.

And Pidge realised at that moment, when Allura was ready to cast him out, that she couldn't condemn him for the choices he'd made.

*

He didn't fall when the pod opened. Pidge was fully expecting to be flattened if she didn't move out of the way, but she needn't have worried, he didn't even wobble. Lotor's eyes fluttered open slowly, adjusting to the light, before settling on her. He said nothing, just took a small step out, letting the pod close behind him and slip back into the floor. The room immediately felt far too loud in its silence.

"You feel okay?" A pointless question really, seeing as Lotor had just stepped out of the  _ healing pod _ . But he humoured her nonetheless.

"No more worse for wear. Perhaps a little foggy," he said.

"Well, you were shot, so you were in there for a little while." Pidge huffed an almost-laugh as she brought up a hand to her neck — a distinctly  _ Lance _ mannerism of anxiety she guessed was rubbing off on her.

"I do feel rather bare, though." Lotor stopped the silence before it could return, immediately giving Pidge pause to inspect his reasoning for saying so, before she caught on to the apparent subtext of his response —  _ these bodysuits are rather... snug _ . Well, that certainly amped up the tension, she may now need a hacksaw for it never mind a knife.

"Right, well." Where to go from here.

"Speak your mind Paladin, I can't read it." The heavy bitterness in Lotor's voice squeezed a grimace out of her.

"What you asked me—" breathe, "— before I got shot, well, I guess before  _ you _ got shot—"

"You didn't get to answer me," Lotor supplied her.

"Right." Impatience was becoming a more and more evident element of Lotor's expression the longer Pidge stalled. So, with a weighted sigh, she let go. "I believe you've done what's necessary for the betterment of the universe. And, well, I know Voltron would definitely not agree — hell, Allura would have your _head_ — but, I think you've... not necessarily done the right thing _per se_, more... done what you _had_ _to_, and what Voltron could never do."

The impatience was gone. Instead, a tense calmness rested over Lotor's features. His brow even, jaw unclenched, eyes clear. But, there was still something more, something glistening in the sheen over his eyes.  _ Pain _ . So Pidge did the only thing she could think of at that moment. The same thing she had done every time Lance had scared her with his sorrowful looks; every time Keith had looked like he wanted to be included; every time Hunk had been through another scary experience unequipped; every time Shiro had looked like all he could do was collapse after a hard day of fighting.

She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his middle — wordless support. It took Lotor a few seconds to calibrate precisely what had just transpired, but once he had, he quelled the instinct to push her away, instead, he brought his arms to rest upon the backs of her shoulders, a deep frown almost pushing the wetness in his eyes out and over the edge — almost, but not quite.

"Welcome to the Voltron coalition."


End file.
